A MERSEYSIDE man who tried to make himself a fortune by printing his own money has been stripped of every penny he earned from the scam.

David Harper, from Tue-brook, was part of a gang of north west crooks who set up their own mint in a backstreet printing works and started churning out bank notes. He was jailed for 61/2 years.

Now a court has ordered him to hand over almost £40,000 that he is believed to have made during the massive fraud.

And the 36-year-old was warned that if he does not pay up by May he will be jailed for another 15 months, as well as still having to cough up all the money.

The ECHO told in June how Harper was part of a joint Merseyside-Manchester gang which produced more than £4.4m of fake dollars and Sterling banknotes before the team was caught.

The offenders were jailed for a total of more than 20 years for their part in the fraud and now detectives are trying to get their hands on the money the forgers made.

Harper has now appeared before a confiscation hearing at Minshull Street crown court in Manchester where he was told he had six months to pay £38,333.45

Gang boss Anatasios Arnaouti, of Atherton Close, Failsworth, Manchester, was ordered to pay a fine of the same amount after the court decided the pair had made almost £80,000 between them before they were caught.

Det Supt Nick Lewis, from the National Crime Squad, said: "The print site they ran had the potential to produce unlimited amounts of high quality counterfeit banknotes.

"Every counterfeit note created has the potential to damage the economy, and this gang were printing off millions."

A third man, Robert Whittaker, had everything he owned confiscated by the police in July after he was jailed for his part in the crime.

Whittaker, 41, of Longfellow Street, Toxteth, was fined £380 - the only assets he had to his name after he was locked up.

Fellow gang member Charles Mace, of Mulberry Mews, Stockport, will appear at Minshull Street crown court, in Manchester, for a hearing to investigate what assets he owns on a later date.